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Procedural Memory
The gradual acquisition of skills as a result of practice, or 'knowing how' to do things.
Prospective Memory
Remembering to do things in the future.
Long-Term Potentiation
An increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation, believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.
Short-Term Memory
Activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing.
Concept
A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.
Prototype
A mental image or best example of a category.
Schema
A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.
Assimilation
Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.
Accommodation
Adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.
Executive Functions
Higher order thinking processes that include planning, organizing, inhibition, and decision-making.
Algorithm
A step-by-step method of problem solving that guarantees a correct solution.
Heuristic
A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently.
Representative Heuristic
A mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case.
Availability Heuristic
Making a decision based on the answer that most easily comes to mind.
Mental Set
A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.
Priming
The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response.
Framing
The way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.
Gambler's Fallacy
The belief that the odds of a chance event increase if the event hasn't occurred recently.
Sunk-Cost Fallacy
People make decisions about a current situation based on what they have previously invested in the situation.
Functional Fixedness
The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.
Confirmation Bias
A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.
Overconfidence
The tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.
Belief Perseverance
Clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
Creativity
The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.
Divergent Thinking
Expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that diverges in different directions).
Convergent Thinking
Narrow the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.
Memory
The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information.
Explicit Memory
Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and 'declare'.
Episodic Memory
The collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place.
Semantic Memory
A network of associated facts and concepts that make up our general knowledge of the world.
Implicit Memory
Retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection.
Working Memory
A newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information.
Working Memory Model
An explanation of memory used when working on a task, with each store being qualitatively different.
Visuospatial Sketchpad
A component of working memory where we create mental images to remember visual information.
Long-Term Memory
The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system, including knowledge, skills, and experiences.
Multi-Store Model
An explanation of memory that sees information flowing through a series of storage systems.
Sensory Memory
The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.
Central Executive
The part of working memory that directs attention and processing.
Phonological Loop
The part of working memory that holds and processes verbal and auditory information.
Iconic Memory
A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.
Echoic Memory
A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli, recalling sounds and words within 3 or 4 seconds.
Shallow Processing
Encoding on a basic level based on the structure or appearance of words.
Deep Processing
Encoding semantically, based on the meaning of words; tends to yield the best retention.
Automatic Processing
Unconscious encoding of incidental information, and of well-learned information.
Effortful Processing
Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.
Encoding
The processing of information into the memory system by extracting meaning.
Retrieval
The process of getting information out of memory storage.
Structural Processing
Learning words by remembering their physical features.
Phonemic Processing
Encoding the sound of words.
Semantic Processing
Thinking about the meaning of words to be learned.
Levels of Processing Model
A model of memory that assumes deeper processing leads to better retention.
Mnemonic Devices
Techniques for using associations to memorize and retrieve information.
Method of Loci
A mnemonic technique involving associating items with physical locations.
Chunking
Organizing items into familiar, manageable units.
Categories
Networks of associated memories that share common features.
Hierarchies
Complex information broken down into concepts and subcategories.
The Spacing Effect
The tendency for distributed study to yield better long-term retention.
Memory Consolidation
The gradual process of converting new long-term memories to stable memory codes.
Massed Practice
Cramming.
Distributed Practice
Spacing study periods for better retention.
Serial Position Effect
The tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.
Primacy Effect
Tendency to remember words at the beginning of a list especially well.
Recency Effect
Tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well.
Rehearsal
The conscious repetition of information for storage.
Maintenance Rehearsal
Repeating stimuli in their original form to retain them.
Autobiographical Memory
Memory for events and facts related to one's personal life story.
Superior Autobiographical Memory
Near-perfect ability to recall every episodic memory.
Retrograde Amnesia
An inability to retrieve information from one's past.
Alzheimer's Disease
A progressive and irreversible brain disorder characterized by deterioration of memory and reasoning.
Infantile Amnesia
The inability to remember events from early childhood.
Recall
A measure of memory where the person retrieves information learned earlier.
Recognition
The ability to match a piece of information or a stimulus to a stored fact.
Retrieval Cues
Stimuli used to bring a memory to consciousness.
Context-Dependent Memory
Theory that information learned in a particular situation is better remembered in that same situation.
Mood-Congruent Memory
The tendency to recall experiences consistent with one's current mood.
State-Dependent Memory
The phenomenon where memory retrieval is most efficient in the same state as memory formation.
Testing Effect
Enhanced memory after retrieving information rather than just rereading.
Meta Cognition
Thinking about thinking.
The Forgetting Curve
Graphs retention and forgetting over time.
Encoding Failure
Failure to process information into memory.
Proactive Interference
The disruptive effect of prior learning on recall of new information.
Retroactive Interference
The disruptive effect of new learning on recall of old information.
Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon
The temporary inability to remember something with a feeling it is just out of reach.
Repression
In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.
Misinformation Effect
Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.
Source Amnesia
Attributing an event to the wrong source.
Constructive Memory
A process of recalling a generalized schema then adding specific details.
Imagination Inflation
A memory phenomenon where vividly imagining an event increases confidence it occurred.
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